U.S. Catholic is another anti-Catholic rag, similar to National Catholic Reporter, and others. I recommend everyone steer clear of them. The folks running the place are not faithful to the Church. They’re faithful to “the world.” I used to try posting there, but they would delete posts that were too orthodox, or posts that the liberal “Catholics” complained about because they didn’t agree with what the Church teaches.

Well, that was fun. Trying to find a way to get around the slanted wording in the poll was a nice challenge for the afternoon. I think I held the fort, at least a little bit. The enemy is certainly inside the walls and they wave our flag, too. I keep praying that when the challenge comes, I won’t be half asleep and miss it. This was good practice.

The pope who most embodies the true spirit of Vatican II is:
? John XXIII
? Paul VI
? John Paul I
? John Paul II
? Benedict XVI

If the Third Vatican Council started today, the most important topic for it to address would be:
Whether we can still manage to declare any new doctrine without any teeth, after the integritistes go all St. Nicholas on our [deleted]?.

By and large I expressed my opinion that the Second Vatican Council was the right thing for the Church at the wrong moment in history; that its coincidence with the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and 70s produced unfortunate consequences in place of the splendid results that were hoped for and expected.

I expressed an opinion that it was good that all the old Gallican barnacles were power blasted off the Roman Rite and that its Roman-ness was restored, at least on paper. I lamented, however, that that restored Roman-ness that appears on paper is rarely seen in practice at the altar…that what happens in practice is too often something banal and deformed.

I opined that the Third Vatican Council should not be summoned, but that if it had to be, its objective should be to revisit the Second Vatican Council and to correctly implement what was meant to be implemented over what was actually implemented. A restoration of the sacredness of the liturgy ought to be emphasized, along with the proper catechesis of the Faithful. Continue to dialogue with the Orthodox, and in order to better do that, cease this fruitless flirtation with Protestantism whereby we try to look more like them in order to appeal more to them. We do so at the expense of making ourselves repulsive-looking to the Eastern Church. The healing of the East-West schism should be prioritized over and above the coaxing back of the Lefebvre group, too. Rome should stop expending too much energy on filling that pothole at the expense of the healing of the Church’s greatest chasm. With the exception of a few liturgically-convicted Anglicans and Lutherans and with the exception of a few well-intentioned Lefebvrists, the Protestants and the radical Traditionalists have gone to the movies, now, and they’re not coming home. In the meantime, the Orthodox have recognized the Bishop of Rome as “protos” of the universal Church. That’s huge. It’s time to ignore the punks and focus on reuniting with our other half.

I expressed a hope that the Church would never simply return to its pre-Conciliar ways, as if there were no flaws in need of correcting back then. Let the Catholic Church continue to identify with the name “Christian” in all that she says and does. Focus on the Gospel message and take Christ’s message of love and service to heart. Away with Vatican secrets and wordly glory and all of the vain pomp, dark intrigues, and self-righteous hypocrisy that stifles the Gospel message and makes the Church seem, at times, like little more than a display of the last desperate breaths of the Roman Empire. If all of that obscures Jesus Christ to the point where people can’t see him in our Church, then to hell with it. We should glory more in our service of the poor of Calcutta than we do in the train of a cappa magna.

It was John XXIII, who opened the Council and whose hopes for a new Springtime for the Christian Church were dashed, who most genuinely represented what Vatican II ought to have been all about. Perhaps it is Benedict XVI who will come to represent the rescue of John’s magnificent vision.

@Centristian – agree with you fully. I used to subscribe to the original US Catholic called St. Jude Magazine. Is it still published by Claretians?
I answered in much the same way but not so lengthly. Thanks Father Z.

I took their poll, and I gave them my real name and the name of the city near which I live, but I didn’t give them my email address. The website claimed that my answers were accepted, so I guess the email address is not required.

For what it’s worth, I said (among other things) that the Church should convene another Council, and their first order of business should be to suppress ALL of the documents issued by Vatican II. I think the problems in the Church are so entrenched now that it is not possible to salvage anything from Vatican II. Willful heretics and uncatechized laymen simply won’t “get it” if some documents or portions of documents are kept, and others are tossed or changed. Starting over with a clean slate would, I think, stop most arguments before they get started.

I mention tossing or changing some of the documents because I read an interview with the editors of the new book entitled Keys to Interpreting the Second Vatican Council (or something like that). One of them, either a bishop or a monsignor, said that at least some of the documents ARE open to debate, and he singled out the one that addresses the Church’s relationship with non-Christian religions as an example of one that still is not settled. If these editors (all clergymen in Rome) can make such a statement, I don’t think I’m out of line for thinking some or all of the documents can be thrown out or changed. (I plan to get the book if it becomes available in English!)

Anyhow, that’s my 2 cents. Thank you, Fr. Z, for giving us the opportunity to participate in another poll. I enjoyed it, and it made me feel good to rant to the “other side!”

I happen to be reading an out-of-print book by a bishop-participant called “American bishop at the Vatican Council” that I found at a used-book sale. Bishop Tracy sent these descriptions to his diocese in Louisiana during the Council, out of which two books were published. The bishop, supporting the most liberal attitudes, blithely describes the skullduggery, twisted interpretations, the wrong-headed [paraphrase] conservatives and such to make my blood boil. I do nothing but gasp as I read the goings-on. All the themes that we discuss here on this blog can be seen in their inception. Because of his liberal mind-set, Bishop Tracy describes in horrible [to me, anyway] detail the liberal twist of the Council. He clearly felt that the new liberal twist was the enlightened new Catholic, so he was very proud of the derailment of the conservatives’ efforts. If he had been ashamed by any of this, the details would not have been so rich.

I’m only on chapter four, but I am sincerely questioning if Vatican II DID have any good effect. Is there a difference between the intent and the so-called ‘Spirit of Vatican II’, what we call the misinterpretation of the Council?

Referring to one of Father Z’s previous posts on the loss of the Vatican II council records? Bishop Tracy details that two audio recordings were made of everyone at the microphone, that every question and comment/speech were submitted in writing in advance, that transcripts were also taken…and detailed records made of everything. “Vatican II will certainly be the best recorded Council in the history of the Church!”, Bishop Tracy writes.

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A bit more food for thought…

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- St. John Paul II

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Additional Food For Thought

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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